“I guess I’m not a sophisticate,” Mustafa said.
“Ah, but you are well informed.” Saddam placed a hand on the package containing the cards. “Who told you about this? Your friend Wajid Jamil I suppose.”
“I see I’m not the only one who’s well informed.” Mustafa set down his tumbler, which still had half a finger of whiskey in it. “You should know Wajid wasn’t spying on you, specifically.”
“No?”
“I asked Waj for help researching something we’re calling the mirage legend. One of his keyword searches turned up several eBazaar auctions, including that one. When he saw the mailing address attached to the winning bidder’s account, he contacted me.”
“Ah, the mailing address . . . Qusay warned me about that. ‘Rent a PO box,’ he said. But it’s a hassle, for something that’s not even illegal.”
“Your eBazaar account name isn’t exactly subtle, either,” Mustafa noted.
“Well, that I couldn’t resist. I’ve always been an admirer of Nebuchadnezzar.”
“So I gather.”
“I dedicated my first novel to him . . . He was a great leader. A great Arab leader, unlike Salah al Din, who had the misfortune to be born a Kurd.” Saddam’s expression grew distant as he sipped his whiskey. “You know, the Jews say Nebuchadnezzar went mad. For seven years. Exiled from his rule in Babylon, forced to live like a lesser person . . .”
“Like a beast, actually,” said Mustafa, who’d been reading the Book of Daniel as part of his research into rapture theology. “ ‘You shall be driven away from human society, and your dwelling shall be with the wild animals.’ ”
“But the story has a happy ending,” Saddam said. “At the end of the seven years, the king returned to his right mind, and to his throne.”
“Yes.” Mustafa glanced at the whiskey bottle. “After he submitted to God and became a righteous man . . .”
Saddam seemed to mull something over. Finally he reached under the edge of his desk and toggled a hidden switch. The section of wall on which the map of Al Hillah was mounted gave a shudder and began to swing inwards.
“Finish your drink,” Saddam said. “I want to show you something.”
“I call it my alternate-reality room,” Saddam Hussein said. “You know this expression, ‘alternate reality’? It’s a new media thing.” He waggled his hands in the universal gesture of the over-fifty trying to get a grip on the Internet Age. “My daughter Hala explained it to me. They do this thing now, to promote movies and new TV series, sometimes video games as well. They plant clues and hints in cyberspace, so it’s like this mystery for people to solve, but really it’s an advertisement.”
“They?” Mustafa said.
“Bollywood. The Hindus invented the practice. But now film companies here are doing it too, and in Israel. Some of the cutting-edge alternate-reality productions are very elaborate, not just stuff on the web, but live-action events with props. Hala, who is very interested in new media, got wind of an alternate-reality campaign that seemed to be about me. Now you know there’s going to be a movie version of Zabibah and the King—if my producer ever gets off his ass—so at first I thought it was connected to that. But nobody at the production house knew anything about it. So I had my people do some investigating, and they started finding these items, these—”
“Artifacts.”
“Yes. Like pieces of a puzzle. As you can see, someone is quite fixated on me.”
The room was like a small museum whose focus was the same as the vanity art in the rest of the house. On the walls behind glass were many newspaper and magazine clippings, all featuring Saddam’s image. Most of the clippings seemed to be from English-language publications, or ghost publications—Mustafa spotted several New York Times front pages.
Display cases in the center of the room held other types of artifacts. Mustafa lingered beside a tabletop display of a war game. The playing board showed North America, divided into sectors; an invasion force of brightly colored plastic tanks and troops had landed on the east, west, and Gulf coasts and was pushing into the heartland. Mustafa was confused as to how this fit with the general theme of the room, but then he saw the art on the game box lid—the face of the invaders’ leader—and he understood.
“So what does it all mean?” Mustafa said. “If this is a puzzle, what’s the solution?”
“I’m still working that out,” Saddam Hussein said. “But these objects tell a story about another world, an Arabia and an Iraq with a different history.”
“And you are the hero of this story?”
Saddam spread his hands and smiled, as if to say, Who am I to argue with my fans? “Every legend needs its champion.”
“What about the other characters?” Mustafa said. “Who else is in the story?”
“Various celebrities, politicians mostly.” Smirking: “That clown Al Gaddafi, though I think he’s the comic relief.”
“Osama bin Laden?”
“Ah, that one.” Saddam shrugged. “He might have a role I suppose. But you know, I don’t even find him interesting in real life. He’s too stuck up, like a Saud without the pedigree.”
“And America?” Mustafa looked down at the game board. “What’s America’s role in the story?” He looked up again to find Saddam nodding.
“That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it?” Saddam said. “Something to do with the Americans.”
“It seems this alternate-reality campaign, or whatever it is, has caught the attention of a number of crusaders,” Mustafa told him. “But they think it’s a true story.”
Saddam chuckled. “Americans . . . Always confusing fantasy and reality.”
“Tell me where you get these items,” Mustafa said. “Are they all from eBazaar?”
“I have various sources. Lately though, yes, a lot of items have been turning up on eBazaar. The auctions are typically private, but there’s an email notification list for people known to be interested in such things . . . By the way, as long as your friend Wajid Jamil is giving away personal information about his customers, I would love to know who has been bidding against me. That game, for instance, that cost me almost ten thousand riyals.”
“Ten thousand?”
“I wanted it,” Saddam said, sounding defensive. “But some bastard tried to snipe it out from under me at the last minute.”
“Do you know the source of these items?” Mustafa asked next. “The return address for the deck of cards—”
“A shop in Frankfurt, yes. It’s a front. All the return addresses are—I’ve checked them out. The ultimate source of the items is elsewhere.”
“Do you know where?”
“Let’s say I have an idea. If I’m willing to pay ten thousand riyals for a board game, what would a clue about the game’s maker be worth?”
“You want money?”
“If you were a banker I might ask for money. As a servant of the president, there are more important things you can do for me.”
“Like help you with a legal problem?” Mustafa guessed.
“There are rumors of a new indictment being prepared against me by the IRS. If the president could shut that down, it would go a long way towards earning my gratitude.”
“A long way, or the whole way?”
“Perhaps one other small favor as well,” Saddam said. “You’re not the only one intercepting my deliveries. Recently I had a private shipment that was stolen on its way into Baghdad . . .”
“That sounds like a matter for the local police. Surely you’ve got that covered.”
“Ordinarily that would be true. But the thieves come from a neighborhood where police influence is . . . weak.”
Sadr City, Mustafa thought. “The Mahdi Army stole a package from you? Does that mean Muqtada al Sadr is playing the alternate-reality game too?”
“No, no,” Saddam said. “This is nothing to do with that. It’s a different kind of shipment.”